Structuring Environmental Management Choices

摘要: In late 1999, 24 people representing a variety of interests, perspectives, and agencies signed off on a consensus agreement that fundamentally changed water flows on a disputed stretch of a managed river in British Columbia, Canada. Up until then, hydroelectric facilities on the river had been operated primarily for power production, with limited consideration given to effects on fisheries, wildlife, recreation, and local communities. Relationships among the diverse stakeholders (BC Hydro, which produces electricity from the dam, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the provincial Ministry of Environment, and community members) were strained. Court actions were threatened by both the local aboriginal community and the federal Fisheries regulator. From the utility’s perspective, water management options were complicated by an unclear regulatory environment that offered little guidance about how to involve other stakeholders, how to address trade-offs affecting water flows, or how to adapt management practices to public values that had changed over time. Conventional thinking suggested a choice between negotiation and litigation. Instead, the utility, along with provincial and federal regulators, collaboratively developed and adopted a structured decision making (SDM) approach. In addition to achieving consensus agreements at all but one of 23 facilities, the SDM process produced a common understanding among key stakeholders about what could and couldn’t be achieved with different management alternatives, about which trade-offs were acceptable, and about which uncertainties were most important. By focusing on mutual …